The year is 2014, and two 18teen year old writers are entering an abonend bunker.

uh so what’s Thunderdome?

Thunderdome is more than just a weekly fiction contest.

Thunderdome is a crucible, the sides of which are coated with the remnants of the obliterated weak. Thunderdome is an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Thunderdome is glorious doom made briefly manifest, it is the percussive thunder of corpses hitting the floor.

Thunderdome is weakness leaving your body.

In Thunderdome, you write. You get your writing ripped apart. Then you come back for more. You become a better person for it. Maybe you even become a better writer.

but so okay that sounds cool, how do i participate

Each week, the previous week’s winner delivers a prompt, along with a word count, a deadline for signups, and a deadline for submissions. Your job is to read the prompt, sign up for the prompt, and then give your very best shot at writing a real nice story within the word limit and in time for the deadline.

It’s harder than it sounds.

Once the submission deadline passes, the winner/Boss Judge and their two chosen co-judges convene and decide the glorious victor, the pathetic failure, and any honorable/dishonorable mentions for the week. Generally, the judges will also give feedback in the form of short critiques.

The loser also gets this sweet losertar:

Then the cycle repeats.

It’s important to note that once you’ve posted your story, the time for edits is over. Use the preview button, for god’s sake. Stories that have been edited will be disqualified.

so can i join whenever i want?

No. Check the most recent prompt post for the sign-up deadine, typically a Friday but FFS this is a writing thread, read the prompt post. It’ll be angry and have lots of s.

what if i only want two judges? or FOUR?????

quote:

Three shalt be the number of judges, and the number of judges shall be three.
Four shalt not judge, nor either shall those judging number two, excepting that thou then include a third.
Five is right out.

can i judge even if i’m an unweaned unblooded soggy-spined babby

Probably not, unless the judges are desperate.

Absolutely do not step up to judge a brawl if you haven’t at least entered a few times and either won or received honorable mention.

You are always free to give critiques, but you should participate in a few rounds before you judge stories. You’ll give better feedback and have a better critical eye when it comes your time to take up the robe and gavel.

YOU JUST DIDN’T ‘GET’ MY STORY

If you really feel like you need to carry on about the critique you get, take it to the Fiction Advice Thread or post your story in the Fiction Farm. for more extensive feedback.

This thread is for

*Postin’ stories
*Judgin’ stories
*Crittin’ stories

Because there is nothing worse when you’re waiting for judgment and there’s a bunch of new posts and NOPE it’s just 16teen new posts of empty-calorie blather.

i was gonna post a story but then i got high and played skyrim instead is that ok

People who sign up and then don't post a story are the worst kind of people.

IF YOU DON'T SUBMIT A STORY AFTER SIGNING UP YOU BEST BE TOXXING YOURSELF

do it twice in a row and you don't even gotta worry about ever showing your face in the 'dome again.

i heard this thread sucks

Well. In the more-than-a-year that Thunderdome has been around, we’ve seen lots of people improve their writing drastically, finally get around to working on ~Their Novel~, and even--in a few cases--get published.

If you want to do a poo poo-ton of writing and get quick feedback, this is the place to be every week. We even occasionally run mandatory magazine submissions weeks, so who knows, your lowly internet forums post could show up in a real-life publication!

BRAWLS

what if someone was sassin’ and i want to give them what-for?

Thunderdome has a wonderful institution called the brawl. Brawls are like cage matches where a roaring crowd watches two glistening combatants face off and take half-hearted, kitten-like swings at each other.

DO NOT CHALLENGE SOMEONE TO A BRAWL UNLESS YOU’VE PARTICIPATED IN AT LEAST ONE WEEK OF THUNDERDOME, CHRISTING gently caress

So okay, you’ve proven your mettle in the dome and even worked up a healthy grudge against someone.

To initiate a brawl, you simply call your intended out in the thread. If they accept (which, all people who don’t suck accept), then one of our Brawl Arbitration and Liability Limitation (BALLs) specialists will assign you a prompt, word count, and due date.

They will also judge your story, give results, and in most cases, give critiques.

DO NOT STEP UP TO JUDGE A BRAWL UNLESS YOU’VE AT LEAST GOT AN HONORABLE MENTION

I said it before, but it bears repeating. This isn’t to be exclusive, it’s to ensure that the brawl judge(s) don’t flake out, issue an awful prompt, or drop the ball on judgment. Generally one person is sufficient to judge a brawl, but there can be more if the judge so desires.

quote:

kayfabe /ˈkeɪfeɪb/ is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true," specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not of a staged or pre-determined nature. Kayfabe has also evolved to become a code word of sorts for maintaining this "reality" within the realm of the general public

*Skipping out on crits every single time you judge. People get busy, life happens, but this thread doesn’t work without the rear end in a top hat-disintegrating critiques. No one gets better, which means YOU have to keep reading lovely fiction.

*I will say this one time. FANFICTION IS NEVER OK EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU ARE BEING CLEVER BY HIDING THE FANFICTION IN WHAT AT FIRST SEEMS TO BE A SERIOUS STORY FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK i will slap your face into ugly little pieces

*I reserve the right to add more to this section as you mouth-breathing satanists find creative ways to make me regret having been born.

Bossdad of Thunderdome
Martello

People who are good judges (this list is based on people who’ve judged the most times)
Sebmojo
Bad Seafood
Kaishai
Martello
The Saddest Rhino
Erogenous Beef
Crabrock
Fanky
me

Unlockable Bonus Characters
Chairchucker
Mercedes
Nubile Hillock

Ock
ock.

Come talk poo poo with us. MAIN CHAT: SynIRC, #thunderdome

Sitting Here fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2014 around 03:49

Sebmojo, only one of us can be King of Wellington. By right of victory, I challenge you to Kiwibrawl. There will be buckets of blood, pretty good coffee, and apologising for things that other people do.

Come and fight me, you no good Syrio Forell-looking motherfucker.

SurreptitiousMuffin fucked around with this message at Dec 31, 2013 around 08:15

It's a New Year. The sun shining, the snow is melting, and all around people are burying old feuds. Forgiveness is in the air.

But some feuds can never be forgiven.

This week, I want to read a story with roots as old as time. Once, they were the best of friends. Now, they are the worst of enemies. Ceaser and Brutus, Anakin and Obi Wan, Professor Xavier and Magneto.

Your story must include two characters who were/are/will someday go from being the staunchest of allies to the most the hated of rivals

There's plenty to work with here, this is some classic poo poo. Betrayal. Love. Mothers turning against sons and brothers against sisters. Any genre, any time period, the disagreement can be anything, so long as it matters to your characters more than the world itself. Make it sad, make it epic, make it a story that stands the test of time. Don't be boring.

You don't have to include the entire arc (in fact, you probably shouldn't), but by the time the story is finished, the reader should have a pretty good idea of where the characters have been, where they're going, and what has torn them apart.

You drop your bag and chase after Gus. Behind you, Officer James trips over your books and faceplants on the floor. You burst from the school doors onto an empty lawn, and grab your bike from the rack. Officer James runs out of the school, but stops his chase as you ride down the street. You race toward town, occasionally glancing over your shoulder. Nobody follows you.

The chimes above the door to Don’s Donuts jingle as you walk in. Gus turns around and his eyes widen. He waves you over.

“Holy crap, I always figured you for a goody-goody.”

“The name’s Jake,” you say, shaking Gus’ hand.

“Hi Jake, nice to meet you. Sorry about knocking you over earlier.”

“It’s no big deal,” you say, but you’re kind of glad it happened.

“You like maple bars?”

You nod.

“Hey Pops, get Jake here a maple bar.”

The man behind the counter smiles and ducks into the donut counter.

“Wait, that’s your dad?” you ask.

Gus laughs. “Yup, has been for twelve years.”

“He doesn’t care that you’re ditching school?”

Gus shrugs. “Know he can’t stop it really, figures I might as well be here where at least he knows I’m not off doing something stupid.”

Don, Gus’ father, delivers a maple bar and a carton of whole milk to the table. “Nice to meet you Jake,” he says. “A friend of Gus’ is always welcome here. Gus don’t have many friends.”

“Shush dad! You’re gonna embarrass me!”

You struggle not to gasp. Gus, not having friends? He was the biggest, meanest kid in the whole school. He could have any friend he wanted. Not like you, the weakling that is picked last for kickball and left at the museum on field trips. You shove the maple bar into your mouth so you don’t have to say anything.

You finish your donut and Don tells you it’s on the house. You follow Gus around back and he takes a cigarette out of his pocket. It’s bent in the middle, but he straightens it out and rolls it between his fingers. He lights it, takes a long drag, and then coughs.

“This is a real strong one,” he says. “I know where to get the real cigarettes. The illegal stuff from Europe.” He coughs again. “Here,” he says, and holds out the cigarette.

I have trained in strange lands and my prose level is more powerful than ever, I will demonstrate this to you provincials in the year 2014 (but not this week I am still on holiday and gently caress that).

Now we both realise that your styles are weak, feeble, and it is long past time that they be ended. You have suggested it be me that should do this; so let it be written.

Tl,dr: bring it, bitch

I'll judge this one.

Muffin vs sebmojo: Almost Down-Under Brawl

Write a story where a character undergoes a complete transformation. Not just a change of heart at the end of the story, but a slow, irreversible, completely opposite person of who they were at the beginning of the story. Convince me that this person is different. I really need to believe their motivations and understand why they did what they did. The more extreme the switch, the more points you'll get.

Word count: 2,000

Don't feel obligated to use all of them, but I didn't want you to be limited by trying to cram what you need to write into a few words. Make me believe this poo poo.

I push the gun into her head. I feel her push back so I kick her hard in the bottom of her spine. The base of her neck was glistening with sweat, her ponytail was matted with blood. Joey didn't like her tone when we came into the house so he produced a full-stop to her sentence in the shape of a swift smack with the bottom of a 9mm pistol.

The house has no carpet. The walls have mould with more life than half the residents in the block and the dust has settled in all the areas it could.

Her daughter was motionless on the couch clutching a yellow bear with one eye. Behind her sat the orange skyline of Block 89. The huge skyscrapers bursting out of the ground almost like fingers reaching for something better.

The soles of her feet are black. I don't know why I am so upset by this. I tell her to get down and go and wait in her room. She jumps up and in a flash is gone. I see a fresh looking wound on her arm as she goes past. Looks like someone had carved “mine” into her.

“It's been four days Louis. We need to see some of the money”

Joey usually did all of the talking. I wanted to keep my mouth shut, literally at times with the squalor we have to do our work in.

“I have some.” She nods towards a Buddha statue place on the fireplace.

I pop the head off and immediately see a roll of money that was going to mean nobody is going home any time soon.

“It's all I could get, please. I'll get more by next Wednesday. I need to get Lexi working more”

Lexi - her 12-year-old daughter – was known to be working for Louis. I often saw Louis dragging her from door to door of the Block 89 offering her around. Most turned them away. Other times the door stayed open and the two eventually faded into the darkness of the house as the door closed behind them.

I hated these jobs; too much emotion and very little reward. Joey and I had been working together for about 3 years. He can hold his drink and a conversation so I didn't argue with the pairing.

We floated around freelance for a while; hearing jobs in the underground pubs off Block 12, posting cards in the immigrant offices whoring ourselves out whoever could pay. lovely jobs from lovely people. We are good at our jobs so eventually Tony invited us to work for him. Tony owned Block 89 and everyone in it.

The thing with Tony is he liked little girls. He liked to hurt them. I heard some poo poo about how he liked to write his name onto their bodies with a hot knife. I was about ready to shoot this gently caress in the face when I heard but Joey reminded me what was outside of the Block. He was right of course but I didn't like it.

Unfortunately a few days ago Lexi went to see Tony. This meeting didn't go to plan and a refund was requested. We are here now to get it.

“Please, I haven't anything more right now. Why don't you go into her room and have some fun for a while? She isn't very experienced but you can do anything you want to her. She doesn't make a sound.”

I feel the base of my throat become hot with bile. I want to be sick all over this woman. I want to go home and go to sleep and dream of a place away from here.

BLAM

I mustn’t have put the safety on while searching the house. I haven't been sleeping lately I suppose. That must be it.

Louis' head burst open down the left side, some of her teeth protruded through the hole in her cheek and her tongue was twitching in her blood filled mouth. I kneel down and brush her wet hair away from her eyes.

Louis' pulse collar started to beep, we knew we didn't have much time before the alarm sounded. We needed to get her out of here: an unwarranted death would lead to our bounty collector licenses being revoked and a nice 12 month stint up in Tower 2.

“Get the girl.”

poo poo, Lexi. I knew we had to take her with us; she was a witness and I didn't want her to be left alone either. I knocked on her door and beckoned her out. Her eyes didn't leave the floor as she came to me. She saw her Mum's corpse and I swear for a second I saw a flicker of a smirk.

I hear Joey's gun click behind me. I turn around and feel the wind of a bullet fly past me. A soft fleshy thud makes me turn back towards Lexi. Joey had shot her in the neck. I feel a warm shower of blood up my neck and onto my face. Her eyes meet mine and I catch her before she collapses.

“Joey. Man, what the gently caress are you doing? poo poo.”

Joey wipes the sweat from his forehead and picks Louis' body up.

“C'mon man, we have to get her out of here. They'll think it was robbery or some paedo poo poo or..i don't loving know man, let's go.”

Louis' pulse collar was beeping faster. Every resident over 16 in the Blocks had to have a pulse collar. The crime rate had dropped by 62% in the 3 years they were introduced. If a person's heart rate drops to zero and stays there for 5 minutes an alarm is sounded, the whole floor is shut down and the local block police are called.

I put my finger into the gaping hole in her pale neck. It stemmed the blood slightly but she needs a medic. Lexi's face was glistening with sweat, the orange hue of the dawn sky lit half of her face up. She looked beautiful.

“I'm not going.”

“Get up.” Joey said, switching our radio channel off at the same time. “Come on. Up”

“You shot a kid Joe. A loving child.”

Doors began to open down the corridor. The bleeping loudly fills the air.

Lexi began to convulse, dark clumps of blood began to ooze from her mouth. She was already dead but I couldn't leave her. She grabs my hand and I pick her up and rest her body against the wall, I pull her legs over mine and scoot underneath to support her. Her nightie has ridden up over her bruised legs. I pull it down.

The beeping from Louis' collar begins to beep so fast it becomes a constant high-pitched screech. Joey pulls his gun up and aims it towards me. He drops Louis' body to my feet and smiles.

“You went crazy. I'd never seen you like this. You started shooting.”

Joey shoots himself in the leg. He drops to the floor.

“I tried to stop you. I didn't want to, man...but.”

He lifts his gun up towards me. I turn to Lexi. She has gone. Who was going to stay with me?

One last set of crits from me before the New Year, a new start, and a welcome bottle of champagne. Many of your Stone Age sci-fi entries were remarkable, for better or worse. Several contained no sci-fi. (Reading dense SF may occasionally feel like chewing stones, but that still doesn't count, The Leper Colon V.) One or two stories effectively or actually had no cavemen. Oh, Thunderdome! You never cease to amaze me.

Starting us off on the right foot, we've got caveman sci-fi comedy in the vein of the comic you posted. I abjectly loathed the two occasions on which you failed to capitalize the first word of dialogue (what the hell), and that maelstrom the lawn mower fell from was the anal vortex. But you know? I didn't mind all that much. You can get away with a lot when you're amusing me. Unfortunately, the blue flowers weren't clear at all--my best guess was that they were sparks despite my never having seen a lawn mower throw off sparks. 'Course, I've never seen one revved by a caveman either.

Despite the errors driving me insane ('Narry,' Muffin? Narry?), this was in contention for my winning vote until sebmojo's story came in and trumped it for humor. It remained in my top three. The questions I couldn't shake--the flowers; how Bok lost his hand by getting too close to the back of the mower rather than the front--bothered me every time I went back to them, but I'm glad the story was here and glad that I read it.

For the prompt 'stone age science fiction' you wrote a story that had no Stone Age, no cavemen, and no science fiction. Brilliant. You had my initial losing vote, second only to someone we'll get to shortly, not because the story was that bad--it's quite readable and somewhat interesting--but because you failed the prompt in every way. You didn't meet the challenge Seafood and crabrock set up. You dodged it entirely. For me, that's nearly as close as it gets to insta-loss. Flaky hosing half the prompt himself spared you.

Aside from the technicality question, you have a decent piece with a few flaws. The clause 'the weather was as clear as Petro's cowardice' makes my brow quirk because I haven't seen any particular cowardice from Petro. Caution and nervousness, sure, but those aren't the same, so it's like I'm being told something the text doesn't back up. '“He's lying!” The vibrations in the ground must have been stronger than Ivan realized, the way they reverberated all the way up to Petro's voice.' This is more confusing than it needs to be regarding who's speaking. You keep that detail a mystery until the end of a long sentence. I do like the way you let us know Petro's voice is shaking here, so I'd suggest a restructuring of the line rather than a replacement. 'Less than a minute had lapsed when Petro and his bodyguards found their spines' -- again, I never saw them lose their spines. Until the next sentences when they pale and run. But that's ostensibly after finding their backbones. So the paling and running is brave? You need to show Petro's cowardice in some effective way or else stop talking about it.

This one's my favorite of the serious entries. Your time gate reminds me of the portal from Julian May's Saga of the Pliocene Exile without being a carbon copy of the concept. I gave more of a drat about Urga than any other character this week, and her morality is plausible and somewhat sympathetic; she beats a woman and child to death, but for her, at least, this is a religious rite and duty. The story ends on a turn that follows logically from her character and your premise.

The only quibbles I have are that 'Talltree,' 'Dogbreath,' and 'Urga' aren't exactly a matching set as names go--what's the deal with hers?--and that the chanting crowd brought to mind a Roman circus rather than cavemen. Regardless, it's a good, solid bit of fiction in only 500 words. Nice job.

Take a look at this story and reflect for a moment on the fact that it is a better and more worthy entry than yours.

You had no ambition in writing this that I can see. If you were going for comedy you missed the boat by a mile; 'this story is pointless, lol!' isn't a good punchline.

In addition to that, your telling of the joke is long and labored and doesn't hang together. 'Colv was not a very bright caveman. Oh, he thought he was, as the dim often do, but he most certainly was not.' Why tell us these things? You're about to show that Colv is dumb enough to chew on rocks, and his self-esteem isn't relevant. It's a poor opening. Your premise is that Colv's teeth can chew rock, but then they can't break a thin, narrow piece that ought to be more brittle. He dies, and the reader has not the least cause to care.

The core of Thunderdome is telling stories. Good ones, bad ones, but stories that have a reason to exist. All the smacktalk and kayfabe would be meaningless without performance. Turning in stuff that neither shows your mettle, rises to a challenge, provides a moral, shares an idea, entertains, nor anything else only wastes your time as well as ours. Here's the bright side: your story for your brawl with Mercedes is a story, so there may be hope for you if you do more of that and less of whatever this was supposed to be.

While 'garbage' may be strong, I can't make heads or tails of your story, so I'll still be setting it out on the metaphorical curb come trash day. As far as I can tell, your religious caveman discovers that the altar to Rhea has cracked in two--or is a machine that has split in two, one or the other--and it now leaks a black, acidic substance that leaves him paralyzed by pain from a fingertip contact. He meets a space Viking with laser eyes. It speaks some characters I don't recognize, though maybe they're supposed to be 'Timê,' and then shoots him with his laser fist.

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

You were probably caught by the problems in trying to show everything from the caveman's point of view. Of course the caveman doesn't understand what's going on--but the reader still needs to, so you need to find a way to let us in on the secret. What is the black acid? What are the wings on the bearded man's head? I assume he's a man and not a robot since he has a beard. He sounds mechanical otherwise, so maybe it's the facial hair that needs explaining. I don't know what you were after with the odd characters; I missed the meaning entirely.

I'm skeptical too of cavemen with organized religion, even though I like the choice of Rhea, the Titan mother of Zeus and a fitting goddess for pre-history. The whole doesn't work for me, although at least it's clearly caveman sci-fi and clearly an attempt to tell a tale.

I think you were trying for comedy too. You didn't get there. The corporate-engineer caveman is a character that could be used for humor, but he's not inherently funny to me, and I say this as someone who's read and laughed at a lot of Dilbert. Worse, I was seriously distracted by the question of what Bright Hots were (fire on a stick) and what they had to do with the animal stampede (he set the trees on fire, right? But what happened to the fire? Shouldn't the cavemen either be running or burning to death?). It feels like this situation could be comical; as it's written, it isn't. So you end up with a dull entry that doesn't have much to offer.

The switching between 'Brother Ag' and 'Mad Ag' bemuses me slightly. It would make sense if the protagonist thought of him as Brother Ag and Big Man addressed him as Mad Ag, but then he shouldn't be Mad Ag in the final line.

Strike one: you went over the word count with your initial entry. Strike two: you edited your initial entry. I'm inclined to cut some slack for this since that rule isn't in the OP of the thread in which it was entered, but not a lot. Strike three: the story is bad. You went the Flintstones route in terms of cavemen living modern life with a Stone Age twist, but you didn't bother to make the cameras anything other than actual cameras. Candid Camera is not science fiction, furthermore. Much as I disliked inthesto dodging the prompt as he did, writing this crit changed my mind about whose sins were worse.

That tiger isn't even a sabre-tooth. The Stone Age trappings really are paper thin. The ending is almost as much of a pratfall as the death in The Leper Colon V's story.

The writing's clumsy too. Look at this: 'Lank, on the other side of the bushes, said “I don’t know, she just mentioned it last night when we were watching Real Cavewives of the Chieftains,” Lank said.' Ignoring for a moment the missing comma after the first 'said,' you've got 'Lank said' twice in the same sentence. In the first paragraph, 'dying ululations' suggests death howls rather than sounds that are fading away. 'Grugs eyes' needs an apostrophe. In '“Come on Lank, it’s time to get going.” Grug said,' the period after 'going' should be a comma. That is an ongoing problem with your dialogue. 'They were heading eastward' is a lot more passive than 'They headed eastward' and burns a precious word beside. In the sentence containing 'Grug asked and he,' there should likely be a comma after 'asked,' as the clause that follows is independent. Etc.; you may want to ask the Farm for grammar pointers if these errors aren't a result of a last-minute rush job.

I started liking yours once I got past the first paragraph and its rampant invocation of skybeetles. It would help to cut the 'gently caress Tenfingers' sentiment, since that callous aspect of Crooknose's character doesn't have anything to do with anything or come into play again. You'd lose one of the mentions of skybeetles with it! Bonus!

It's a decent read, but I don't buy your cavemen at all thanks to the vocabulary you gave them. "I think we should investigate the skybeetle." "Will you jump, O Sacrifice? [...] Or must you be assisted?" This dialogue is quite articulate for Stone Age humanity. A lighter humorous story could pull off that kind of disconnect, but yours is more a serious story with streaks of black comedy. It doesn't work. I hope you meant to write a serious-with-black-humor-streaks piece rather than a full-blown comedy. I like the ending in which everyone dies, but it's not very funny--if you're out for nothing but laughs, you may need to reconsider it.

Your writing's solid and your premise isn't half bad. A shame you cluttered it up with ExcessivePortmanteaus. Mileage is going to vary on this one, but I didn't like them at all, and your first paragraph is rife with the things. I got sick of them fast--and since BluntSpear changes his name to Bluntspear midway through, maybe you did too. You do get points for trying to get into a caveman mindset and differentiate it from a modern human viewpoint; a few of the other competitors could take a cue.

The word choices still jarred me out of the story here and there. It looks like you tried to keep to vocabulary a caveman would reasonably understand in the portmanteaus and outside of them, but then I'd see a phrase like 'His own deflected force' and wonder if BluntSpear was a Neanderthal Einstein or what. Other offenders: 'reciprocate,' 'sprained wrist,' and most egregiously, 'ethical.' In the latter case he could be repeating what he was told, but it's an odd word for him to remember if he doesn't understand it. It all didn't quite fit, though I appreciate your effort.

It's an okay piece, safely in the upper middle, but it got soundly licked by an entry with stronger characterization.

Okay, never in all my life have I seen a skinny person who looked like a worm. You outright mention the juts of bone! That's bizarre. Your entry improved from there, but that's damning with faint praise. Still, I didn't mind this one. The message is about as subtle as a brick to the face and about as fresh and original as that simile, but I liked the direction you took your ending.

Where's the science fiction, though? 'Human flesh is tasty' fulfills the 'a caveman discovers something new' option, but 'write it like a scifi novel' was part of that option, and you fell down there. You also ran into the same problem as Tyrannosaurus, in my opinion: I'm not buying 'Then that’s your own fault for submitting. Submitting to nature' as caveman dialogue or sentiment, and your story's serious, so you don't get humor's get-out-of-plausibility-free card. These people are too modern for their setting. See again my comment re: morals, bricks.

Hey, it's an episode of The Twilight Zone! I think I've seen this one! I kid, but only just. There's a very TZ feel to this piece, and in this case that's not so much of a compliment, because what you've written is only a step removed in concept from those hokey 'Adam and Eve were from space!!' scripts. On the plus side, you've made the idea less cheesy than TZ ever managed. The writing is good; the use of two different names/titles of God for your protagonist and antagonist got my attention straight away.

I ranked this about even with Tyrannosaurus's piece despite the superior writing because your shot landed to the left of the prompt. Cavemen discover knowledge of good and evil here, but that's not what the story's about. The Stone Age people are objects, not characters, in the argument between El and Adonai. A good read; an iffier entry.

Drug stories are not to my taste; pot is not insta-funny to me; you managed to make me like this thing anyway. You're a wily one, sebmojo. To be fair, it's the cussing, cantankerous caveman and his color-naming ways that amused me most, and character and tone are where your magic lies here--and I still laughed when Boz's stick became the proto-bong.

Your story most of all illustrates how words like 'prognathous' and dubiously accurate Neanderthal dialogue such as 'loving stupid idiot fuckhead' can be as great in comedy as they are crippling in anything else. The contrast between the typical caveman speech and Boz calling his nephew a Neanderthal numbnuts is funny. In a humorous story that serves your purpose, gives it appeal, so it works.

This was my second choice for the win, but I have one complaint: the 'Danknug' pun doesn't work unless the K in Dan-Knug isn't silent. What's an illiterate society doing with silent letters anyway? Now I'm over-thinking it, and that can only lead to sorrow.

The flowers were literal blue flowers ya nob. He was looking for flowers for his ladyfriend and then he saw them coming out the back of the lawnmower, so he reached under to find the hidden flower-source. He didn't notice them in the first place because he's kinda dumb like that.

The flowers were literal blue flowers ya nob. He was looking for flowers for his ladyfriend and then he saw them coming out the back of the lawnmower, so he reached under to find the hidden flower-source. He didn't notice them in the first place because he's kinda dumb like that.